America once led the world in its ability to unleash the talents of its citizens.
The nation’s commitment to developing its human capital was one of three principal reasons the United States became an economic and military colossus in the 20th century. The combination of a free enterprise economy, universal high school education, and expanded access to post-secondary education generated the prosperity and security we have enjoyed for the past 150 years.
This achievement was no accident. The nation’s federal and state governments drove the expanded access to higher education through strategic and forward-looking policies and funding models that supported new types of institutions, including land-grant colleges, research and regional universities, and community colleges and created an environment in which existing public and private institutions could innovate to better serve emerging populations of students and changing employer needs. The prioritization of higher education as a national strategic asset allowed America to create the best educated and most productive workforce in the world and to support the most innovative people and industries anywhere on the planet.
In a globally competitive, knowledge economy, human capital is our country’s principal national asset and strategic resource.
A well-educated populace:
Strengthens our national security
Grows our economy
Advances our innovation and technological competitiveness
Sustains our democracy
Builds the human capacity to flourish in times of dramatic change
Our country’s future is dependent on how these core purposes are strengthened and reinforced. Through education and impactful research, America’s colleges and universities advance these purposes not in isolation but as critical partners in a complex, dynamic, and multi-faceted system that builds the talent that builds our country and keeps it safe. While some argue that our citizens can do without education beyond high school, the fact is our economy needs more people who are more highly educated, and the “good jobs” available in our economy will increasingly favor workers with higher levels of education and training. From skills-based credentials and certifications to bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees, our country needs a citizenry prepared to meaningfully contribute to our modern workplace, society, and innovation-fueled economy.
But the world is changing and maturing. Complex factors—shifting political and economic patterns, advances in artificial intelligence and bioengineering, rising global conflict, and the changing climate to name just a few—are converging and disrupting existing social, political, and economic patterns around the world. The speed of change also means that we must anticipate there are unknowns and threats just over the horizon that we are not aware of nor do we understand. This convergence is creating a moment that holds both great promise and great challenges for the United States of America.
While previous major political and technological disruptions have created periods of dramatic change in our country, the next decades promise to do so at a scale and velocity that is unprecedented in our history. The U.S. must continue to lead the way but in increasingly complex and competitive arenas.
As we face this uncertain and complex future, America must confront one additional challenge: we are no longer alone in recognizing the critical strategic importance of talent to the health of our economy, society, and democracy. The United States once led the world in educational attainment and was committed to recruiting the best and brightest from around the world. It was the talent gap between us and the rest of the world that fueled our prosperity. But current trends indicate that this advantage is fading, with potentially dire consequences for our global leadership position.
We also need to rethink the way in which we are preparing our citizens to play their part in securing and renewing democracy, both in the U.S. and around the globe. Higher education’s civic mission was a point of American pride for centuries but that too has been fading. Our democracy’s future depends on a citizenry that cherishes its principles and is ready to continue to work on the inherent challenges to sustaining America’s great experiment.
Our country cannot afford the luxury of wasted talent.
The preeminence the U.S. once enjoyed is being eroded as other countries are investing strategically in educating and developing their citizens and as an increasing number of Americans are expressing a growing frustration with the design, outcomes, and costs of our current model of higher education. We can no longer ignore the growing gaps between the numbers of positions needed to fuel our economy, sustain our communities, and keep our nation secure and the numbers of individuals prepared to fill those roles. We can no longer ignore that the current system is not working for too many hardworking Americans. We can no longer ignore that a person’s probability of earning a degree or credential that will put them on the path to economic mobility is determined more by where they live, what race or ethnicity they are, and how much income they have than by their abilities and grit. Given the opportunity, the American workforce can achieve extraordinary things—if only the barriers are removed.
Our country’s global competitive position—the health of our economy, the security of our country, and the strength of our democracy—will be determined by our willingness to once again to work together in strategic ways to harness the collective talents of our people to address growing challenges, imagine new solutions, and flourish in our communities and workplaces of tomorrow.
Cultivating our talent to preserve America’s prosperity and security is our country’s 21st century moonshot.
To respond to emerging global and national challenges and address the workforce gaps that threaten our future, we must find new ways to work together to innovate and unleash the talent of all our people. Together, we must commit to making meaningful progress on the education and talent development outcomes that matter most to the American people:
Cultivating a talent pipeline that aligns with the future needs of our society—economic, technological, and civic.
Improving achievement of the big picture knowledge and essential competencies and skills needed for individuals to both flourish and contribute in our modern, technologically advanced society.
Developing citizens with the civic knowledge and participation that will ensure our thriving democracy.
Achieving globally competitive levels of degree and certificate attainment across all student segments, regardless of demographic, socioeconomic, or geographic factors.
Increasing affordability and expanding access to education that leads to meaningful employment.
This report outlines a strategy for accomplishing these outcomes. Over the last 24 months, the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) has convened the Council on Higher Education as a Strategic Asset (HESA). HESA is a multi-sector coalition focused on America’s global competitive position and national security by proposing new models for higher education policy, funding, and collaboration necessary to develop the talent and human capital required to support our national interests at speed and scale.
The power of HESA is in its diversity of voices and the constituencies they represent. Its work is focused, not on the success of a particular institution or constituency, but on the collective responsibility of higher education institutions and their partners and the federal and state governments to work together to ensure our national security, the health of our democracy, and the economic prosperity of our people through education and talent development. HESA asked and attempted to answer the following questions:
What are the elements of a national strategy that would empower, incentivize, and support colleges and universities to greatly accelerate their contributions to the educational outcomes necessary to support our national priorities?
What would be required to catalyze and empower self-selected institutions into working collectively toward the achievement of critical educational outcomes that would undergird the achievement of our national strategic goals?
What are the accountability frameworks, critical infrastructure investments, policy changes, and incentives at the federal and state level that would need to be put in place to advance the effort?
What should be the role of different actors, including the federal government, the states, individual institutions, their governing boards and faculty, the philanthropic community, and the businesses and industries who benefit from a well-educated workforce?
What follows is a call to action to create a coordinated national response to the complex, strategic education and talent needs of the United States.
Advancing these outcomes will require higher education systems and institutions, state and federal governments, public and private funders, and business and industry partners to collaborate in the national interest and invest in research and innovation that:
Responds to calls from national and state councils to address critical talent and skills gaps.
Addresses wicked problems lacking clear ownership that can only be impacted by multisector partnerships working together in new ways.
Creates new models and learning designs that result in measurable progress on the outcomes that matter most to the American people.
Generates educational innovations and technologies that can be adopted and tested in state and local contexts and then be scaled nationally to achieve measurable national impact.
The time to act is now. We offer the following recommendations, which together provide the elements of a national strategy to empower, incentivize, and support colleges and universities and their partners in the public and private sector to work together to develop our human capital and remain globally competitive.
A national alliance of higher education institutions, state and federal governments, K-12 education, business and industry, the military, and civic and philanthropic organizations that is unified around a shared vision for higher education’s role in advancing national competitiveness and securing democracy’s future and taking the actions necessary to address critical talent and educational gaps.
An executive role within the White House to coordinate the strategy and funding of relevant federal departments and agencies that impact the achievement of talent development goals.
A national talent council to monitor state-level talent development goals and skills gaps, elevating those with strategic, national implications.
Strategic investment and coordination of federal, state and private resources to advance America’s education and talent goals, including the design, dissemination, and delivery of new, more effective and cost-efficient educational models.
A national recognition for institutions that contribute to the achievement of national strategic education and talent priorities.
A public corporation that would serve as the organizing and funding entity for innovation clusters organized to address educational and talent priorities elevated by the national talent council and other commissions focused on strengthening America’s economic prosperity, national security, and democracy.